L'enfer, C'est les Autres
by Socks-With-Stripes
Summary: Tartarus was where the worst of the worst went. It was a place that returned a stab wound for every pinprick committed. It was a place that was a whole lot worse than some acid rain and monsters spawning. Tartarus was designed to crush you, and it certainly did a good job of it. (Short alternate version of Tartarus based around psychological torture.)
1. Chapter 1

_AN: Well, I'd be lying if I said that I was 100% satisfied with Tartarus when I read House of Hades. It seemed like a typical hell - playing off of natural human squeamishness, fiery suffering. Of course it's understandable. I mean, Percy and Annabeth did have to escape_ somehow._ But I had pictured something a little harsher, and bothered to write it down. It was interesting, since fatal flaws aren't really what tortures, so it's not something that was shown repeatedly in the books. _

_Everyone experiences something different in Tartarus, unique to their greatest dreads and fears.__ And that isolation and desperation is what creates the horror._

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L'enfer, C'est les Autres

_Part 1/3: Percy_

Much to Percy's surprise, Tartarus wasn't beyond his wildest nightmares and ultimate fears: it was completely made up of his most intense nightmares and fears.

Tartarus was a raging storm. At some point during the fall, the wind had picked up, not just rushing up past him, but blowing from the sides as well. It only got stronger as they kept tumbling. Now Percy was struggling to walk forwards through the storm. Gusts nearly knocked him off his feet every few seconds. The curls of icy and scalding wind mocked him and laughed at his pathetic attempt to keep going. His feet were made of lead, making every step a struggle. It was raining hard and sideways, but whatever was falling was not water.

He wasn't really picking which direction was forwards, he was just following Annabeth. Or, what he thought was Annabeth anyways. It was a hazy figure in front of him who didn't seem to be having any trouble fighting against the wind. They kept close enough that he could tell that they were there, but far enough ahead that he could tell how much easier they found the process. The hazy figure was beating him. She was smarter than him, cleverer, more successful… and here he was, fighting to not get blown backwards.

Calling out to talk to the person (possibly Annabeth) in front of him wasn't really an option. It was taking all of his effort to stay on his feet. His shoe slid back a foot, and Percy immediately tensed, forcing himself to take another step forwards.

In the gusts of cloud and wind he thought he could see faces sometimes. Often they didn't look familiar, but every now and then he'd pick out one or two that he recognized: his mother, a god, Grover, Luke Castellan, Thalia… They all looked at him with a sort of amused apprehension, as if mildly interested, but not all that concerned if he survived.

Dark clouds filled with an acidic moisture swirled around him, but he couldn't control this hurricane. His own element was fighting against him now, and surely he would lose. He could feel his legs weakening already, his skin being torn off but the force of the wind… though when Percy looked at his hands, they seemed to have no injuries. That didn't stop the pain though, the invisible pain.

The winds mocked and taunted him, watching him fight when they felt like it. They gossiped among each other, howling of how the lowly son of Poseidon was nothing great after all, merely a wrongdoing, a mistake, and how he had bitten off more than he could chew. They screeched and whined and wailed and shouted and chattered, and Percy's vision kept getting foggier. But he had to keep going. He had to prove the winds wrong. He could do it. He could escape this place, if he could just remember what it was he was looking for. Percy Jackson was not weak.

After a while (he could not tell how long), Percy could not tell how far he had moved. The liquid (or maybe it was a solid?) falling from the sky continued to push him back, and the winds held him down. A huge weight seemed to be pressing on his chest, like the sky had been, but somehow even more daunting and forceful.

Percy knew he wasn't strong enough. From the moment he'd landed in Tartarus, he knew that every awful teacher, every playground bully, every Gabe Ugliano, they'd all been right. He wasn't good enough. He couldn't do it. He never could. Percy Jackson was a mistake. His father had said it straight to his face.

He was going be a failure after all.


	2. Chapter 2

_I finished this a while ago and then drowned in homework and didn't get around to editing it until recently. But yeah. Here's the second bit. Annabeth's hell, which is really different from Percy's, but equally as disturbing when you actually picture yourself there._

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L'enfer, C'est les Autres

_Part 2/3: Annabeth_

Tartarus was a dull, dreary, looming grey. Annabeth was surrounded by fog, but it didn't seem to be the usual kind. For starters, it wasn't wet. It didn't feel like anything at all, actually. But it was there, covering whatever sort of ground Annabeth was walking on. Her footsteps didn't echo back to her, so she could only guess that Tartarus was too big for that.

Shadowy figures lingered in the dark mist. It was unclear who they were, or if they were even people at all. They shifted in and out of sight, never staying for long. Occasionally she would see a face. They weren't friendly though, and whenever she caught a glimpse of what she was sure was a person, a sense of dread and loneliness washed over her.

She couldn't see Percy anymore. At some point during the fall they had let go of each other, and that was the last she'd seen of him. He had abandoned her here in Tartarus, and now she was completely alone. It was taking all of Annabeth's strength not to freak out at that fact. Her chest felt like it contained something heavy and ancient, but she continued to walk briskly through the mist.

A blurry figure seemed to be following her. It struggled along as if it were being held back by something incredibly strong. Annabeth was curious, but she couldn't get a good look at it. The figure seemed to dance just at the edge of her line of sight, taunting her with knowledge she couldn't have. It never came too close. Stopping to turn a look wasn't an option either. What if she couldn't remember which way she'd been heading in the first place? She'd be lost down here forever.

The people continued to step in and out of the shadows. They were made of haze and fuzzy lines, but some of them looked familiar. One, she fancied, looked like her stepmother. Another looked a bit like Luke. A person would step out of the greyness and walk by beside her for a while, keeping pace with her quick, steady rate. At first, she liked it when a figure walked with her. She wasn't so alone down here in Tartarus after all. There were other poor souls with her. She could even have a team to work with. But then they would leave her side and fade back into the mist. And Annabeth would keep walking, betrayed and hollow feeling.

It didn't take long to work out the pattern. Something would appear by her. Sometimes she couldn't even see it, she could just feel its warmth and life. Annabeth longed to reach out and touch, but it would always vanish before she could. And each time, her excitement at having a companion dropped more towards dread, and the low of being abandoned became worse and worse. Her dread would turn to anxiety. Her anxiety would turn to fear. Her fear would turn to bleak confirmation. Her confirmation would turn to loneliness. Her loneliness would turn to worthlessness. Her worthlessness would turn to hopelessness, would turn to uselessness, would turn to self-hatred, would turn back into dread.

The vicious cycle gained in strength every time it repeated, and soon Annabeth was sure she could see faces on all the creatures around her. They looked at her with contempt and disregard, before carrying on their way. And those were the better times. The absolute worst were when the face would show interest and friendliness, only to turn out like all the others. The spark of hope that would momentarily ignite in Annabeth would be extinguished, shriveled and dead, as she had felt when she ran away from home, when Thalia had died, and when Luke had left camp.

Annabeth had hoped for fires and physical pain, not monotonous blandness. She had expected torture. Misery. Suffering. It would have been better than this. Because this torture was far worse. It was miserable. She was suffering. It was crueler than she'd ever imagined it would dare to be. She was being manipulated, and she knew it. But at this point, she didn't really care.

No one wanted Annabeth Chase.


	3. Chapter 3

_And part three, the finale. The third one to make it through Tartarus. Once again, it's something quite different torturing this poor child. _

_Poor babies. How I love them so._

_And might as well throw in a disclaimer: RR's characters. My story._

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L'Enfer, C'est les Autres

_Part 3/3: Nico_

Nico had thought he would be able to make it through Tartarus even after he had arrived there. It was part of Hades domain, after all. He should have been perfectly fine. From what he'd heard, that was where the Doors of Death were, so the trip was inevitable. And so Nico had set off to pay Tartarus a visit. He'd shadow traveled, as that was the fastest method of transport.

When Nico landed he immediately realized that two things were wrong. The first was that he did not feel the slightest bit tired. The second was that it was not dark. There were no shadows he could have possibly come out of. It was bright, and very disorienting, and there was a person right in front of him.

He jumped back, but Nico quickly realized that he was in a box made entirely of mirrors. It wasn't that big, but large enough that he could stand up and easily spin in a circle with his arms outstretched, and not touch the sides or the ceiling. There was no visible source of light inside the box, but nonetheless, Nico could see his reflections. Not very impressive for Tartarus.

There was, of course, the matter of getting out.

Things went downhill from there at an alarming rate. As Nico examined the mirrors he began to notice something very odd. Most of them simply showed him as he currently was: skinny, rumpled, and really, really tired looking. But some seemed to show him at fractured angles, more brooding, or more miserable than he really was. And, no matter how many times Nico tried to break the mirrors, he couldn't.

The mirrors were still sharp though. Thin, invisible hairline cracks must have been running through them, because sometimes when Nico touched them they left long slices on his hands and arms. The blood that dripped onto the floor seemed to seep into the mirrored ground, which was still pristine even though Nico had been walking all over it in his muddy shoes.

It didn't take long for Nico to give up and sit down for a break. And that was when he began to understand why Tartarus was a place of eternal suffering.

The emotions crept up on him with stealth. He didn't even notice that they had entered his mind until he no longer had any control of them. Nico stared at his reflections.

In front of him sat a boy who nobody cared for. And, he thought glumly, they were right not to want him. Hell, _he_ didn't want him. There sat a boy who did not fight to help others. A boy who was too selfish to let his sister move on. A boy who never ate enough. He'd gone to Underworld, refusing to leave his sister in peace and returned with what he could scavenge – a second-rate replacement sister. He'd even let her know that she was second best.

The boy in the mirror was not a good person. He did not think of others. Nico was an outcast. He spent more time with the dead than the living, not that he had friends among either. He was both too old and too young. He was too dead to belong in the mortal world and too alive to belong in the Underworld. He couldn't even _like_ the right people. He had to go and be gay on top of everything else. He was never, ever going to be normal.

The reflection glared back at Nico, blood dripping down its arms. The boy in the mirror was obnoxious; he talked either too much or too little. He couldn't even control his own powers. Spires of rock, bones of creatures (once alive, and deserving respect) were dragged up from the ground by accident. Things he touched would sometimes die, so he made a point of never touching people. And he ached to be hugged and loved, but surely he would kill them by accident, and what kind of person would that make him?

The boy that he hated so much was Nico di Angelo.

No wonder Bianca had left him. No wonder she wanted to stay dead. And no wonder she had moved on when the Doors of Death had opened. A boy who wasn't as good as his sister, who lured his friends into traps. A boy who didn't belong at either camp, or with the dead. This was the boy who had lied to an old friend with amnesia, because maybe, just maybe they could start over and he could get something out of it. This was a boy who's own parents hadn't wanted him. This was the boy that Percy Jackson didn't want, and neither did Rome, or Greece, or his sister, or even the Titans. And who could blame them?

Nico wasn't good.


End file.
